On Body and Soul - Ildikó Enyedi (2017)

Tell me, how wonderful does it make you feel to watch an incredibly touching, romantic film? It can fill you up with an indescribable feeling you carry with you for hours, sometimes days. It's so intoxicating, you want to revisit it right away.

Where does that magic come from? Sure, you'll point to the screenplay, the directing, and the lovely performances. Some romances have a powerful charm and a gorgeous story running underneath everything that you really can't verbalize.

In these gems, we fall in love with the characters instantaneously. It's more powerful than what they call chemistry and it's something that you can't explain in words.

So when we are lost in a film like Abdellatif Kechiche's "Blue is the Warmest Color," Francois Truffaut's "Jules and Jim," Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," or Tony Scott's "True Romance," (my favorite love story), what gives us that spark that makes these films so elegant and timeless?

In Ildikó Enyedi's "On Body and Soul," a young woman, Mária (Alexandra Borbély) starts her new job as a meat-inspector at a slaughterhouse. On her first day, she meets the man in charge, Endre (Géza Morcsányi), an older man, very quiet, who keeps him to himself.

On the surface, they don't seem to form any kind of rapport. But they quickly learn the two of them share their dreams.

Literally. When they sleep at night, they wander into a single dream. It's a very simple dream. Endre is a stag who comes across a doe, Mária. There's not much to it, they spend some time playfully and affectionate at a riverbank surrounded by mountains of snow.

It takes them days to realize it, but when they do, they have no idea how to respond. They are not instantly captivated by the other.

The story slowly starts its work. You realize that these two are either going to have to truly earn their relationship, along with our affection, or you're watching a bad movie.

Then they keep raising the stakes on each other. It's very subtle, powerful storytelling going on as they slowly build to the place where Endre and Mária can't and won't live without the other.

So no, they don't share that glow right from the beginning. It takes a while to do it, but Mária and Endre work hard to win our affection and when we've finally fallen in love with them, we are caught off guard. Emotionally, we live and die in every breath they share, in every touch.

"On Body and Soul" takes no shortcuts. It doesn't take for granted that these two, even given the

connection in their dreams, will be able to sustain, or even start, a relationship. It's right at the top of the list with "Blue is the Warmest Color" as one of the great romances so far this century.

And that makes a film a classic. It's why this film will endure.